Introduction

Uniqueness theory deals with people’s emotional and behavioral reactions to information about their
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similarity to others. According to the theory, people find high levels of similarity and dissimilarity
unpleasant, and therefore seek to be moderately distinct from others.

According to uniqueness theory, people seek to avoid the unpleasant affect associated with extreme similarity
and dissimilarity by striving to maintain moderate levels of self-distinctiveness. This means that as people
perceive more similarity between themselves and others, they become motivated to establish their dissimilarity
or uniqueness.

Product as a source of uniqueness

Possessions are often extensions of the self, so one way to differentiate the self from others is
by possessing unique consumer products. Consumers may enhance or express feelings of self-
uniqueness by acquiring products whosescarcity, newness, or relative unpopularity means that
few others will possess them. They may also pursue self-uniqueness by shopping at small, less
frequented stores or by customizing commonly- owned products.

Hypothesis
For the survey we’ve select some hypothesizes. The hypothesizes will help to find out result of
the survey.

1.Consumer innovativeness

New products rarely gain immediate and widespread acceptance. Typically, new products are
first adopted by a relatively small group of consumer innovators who then influence later
adopters. Adopting new products before others do is one way of being different.

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2. Consumer Conformity

Consumers’ brand preferences and choices often conform to those of relevant others. This
conformity can be attributed to two types of social influence-informational and normative.
Informational influence is reflected by a person’s tendency to use other people’s behavior as a
source of information about the objectively best course of action. Normative influence is reflected
by the use of conformity to gain rewards and avoid punishments, as well as by the desire to be
associated with and similar to other people. Since conformity enhances the similarity between
people, the need for uniqueness may inhibit conformity-especially conformity resulting normative
influence.

3. Customization of Products

Marketers are offering the opportunity to customize otherwise common products. Marketers are trying to
provide the products as customized as the consumers wants. Hallmark recently introduced
“Personalize It!” machines, which allow customers to print their own messages on greeting cards. Among the
other products that marketers are beginning to customize are term insurance policies, magazines, and
perfumes. Bangladeshi Brand “Duronto” introduced cycle which consumer can use their own graffiti or sketch
as they want.

4. The Pursuit of Uniqueness through Consumption

One issue that, whether or not people have characteristic, preferred ways of differentiating themselves from
others. It seems likely that people do pursue self-uniqueness in characteristic ways and that some people
seek uniqueness through consumption, while others seek uniqueness in other ways.

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 Present Study

In the present study, we examine the impact of individual differences in the need for uniqueness on
consumer dispositions. Specifically, we test Hypotheses 1 through 4 by assessing the relationships between
self-reports of the need for uniqueness and self-reports of the desire for scarce products, consumer
innovativeness, susceptibility to normative influence and the desire to customize products. The study
addresses the measurement problems in the existing literature by measuring consumer dispositions rather
than specific consumer behaviors, and by developing and using a new measure of self-attributed need for
uniqueness.

Subjects

The subjects in this study were 50 University students. Although representative of the population
is not large, these subjects were generally younger people with less work and consumer experience.
This convenience sample was judged to be appropriate because the purpose of the research was to
test relationships between variables rather than to generalize subjects’ responses to a particular
population.

Results

Hypothesis Strongly Disagree Neither Agree Agree Strongly

Disagree or Disagree Agree
Consumer 6.2% 0.72% 18.68% 46.07% 30.94%
innovativeness
Consumer 3.63% 13.77% 13.07% 47.01% 22.47%
Conformity

Customization 12.34% 14.5% 16.64% 42.03% 14.47%

of Products

The Pursuit of 11.67% 13.9% 25.54% 33.57% 15.3%

Uniqueness
through
Consumption
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Limitations

1.Only 50 University students were taken to find out consumer uniqueness, as a whole it is not
appropriate study to find out the uniqueness of the consumers.
2.Most of the sample are from different private and public university students.
3.Few of the sample were not communicated effectively through the survey.
4.Lack of in depth knowledge and inadequate knowledge causes difficulty in the survey.
5.Age variation is very low as respondents are fairly young.

Theoretical implications

The results of this study provide evidence that individual differences in uniqueness motivation underlie
several consumer dispositions. Consistent with our hypotheses, consumer’s desires for scarce, innovative,
and customized products were related to consumer uniqueness. The relatively strong results observed in this
study may be attributable to our use of consumer dispositions rather than single behaviors and to our use of a
different measure of the consumer uniqueness.
Second, the results of this study provide evidence for the existence of a dispositional tendency to pursue
uniqueness through consumption. Measures of the desire for scarce products, the desire for customized
products, the preference for unique shopping venues, and the willingness to adopt innovative new
products all loaded on a common latent variable.
Finally, the results of this study provide evidence that the consumer uniqueness is independent of
consumer susceptibility to normative influence.

Conclusion

Uniqueness, a feature that most people desires to have. Although, there is various factors behind
attaining uniqueness such as premium price, small margin of production, lesser availability etc. but
yet people has a fascination towards uniqueness of product. Our study, clearly shows peoples
interest to possess uniqueness. Large amount of participants would like to have uniqueness; very
small portion are against it.

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Reference

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/321947
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1016/S1069-
0964%2802%2911009-X
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444316568.wiem03062/abstr
act?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_value_proposition
https://zapier.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-forms-and-surveys/writing-
effective-survey/
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/02651330810851872